ICE Gets More Taxpayer Money For Fewer Deportations

In the real world, Americans don’t typically get paid more money for doing less work than they were before, but this is the government we’re talking about. Thus, it’s only fitting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has received more taxpayer money in the last few years despite the fact that the agency has deported 43 percent fewer illegal immigrants from 2012 to 2015.

ICE deported nearly 410,000 aliens in 2012 when it received roughly $2.8 billion in taxpayer funds. In 2015, the agency expelled just 235,413 aliens but received around $3.5 billion to fund its deportation programs, according to the DHS statistics.

Deportations dropped by 174,436 over the past three years despite an increase in funding totaling more than $680 million, according to statistics highlighted Monday by the Senate subcommittee on immigration and the national interest.

In total, ICE was shown to have received around $3,901 more in funding for each illegal immigrant it failed to deport over the years.

“ICE removed nearly 43 percent fewer total aliens from the United States in FY 2015 than it did in FY 2012—and nearly 62 percent fewer aliens from the interior of the United States,” the subcommittee found, adding that from 2012 to 2015 the agency's budget for detention and removal grew roughly 25 percent.

And the reason for the decrease in deportations? Lawmakers placed the blame squarely on the Obama administration’s policies.

“This dramatic decline in deportations is the direct result of policies implemented by the Obama administration to get around plain law passed by Congress,” the subcommittee noted.